The most important story coming out of the University of Alabama this week has nothing to do with this Saturday's big Crimson Tide-Aggies football contest.

Congratulations to the UA student newspaper, The Crimson White, for its investigation into what it describes as "the last bastion of segregation on campus: The UA greek system is still almost completely divided along racial lines."

The University of Alabama probably is far from the only school where such discrimination exists, but several points make this story stand out: 1. the frankness with which some sorority members, particularly Alpha Gamma Delta member Melanie Gotz, discussed the injustice and 2. the student newspaper's thorough reporting. The Crimson White apparently has done prior work on this topic and proven that other Old South schools, for instance Ole Miss and Auburn, have gone much farther in integrating frats and sororities. (Of course, you wouldn't have to go much further to surpass UA, which apparently can point to only one black woman who has ever successfully pledged an old-line sorority.)

The article documents how several young women tried to break the color barrier and were clearly rebuffed because of their race. Fifty years after Gov. George Wallace blocked the doors of the University of Alabama to two black students, the alumnae of UA sororities still sound like they think the only place for black women on campus is to be "The Help."

To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.

About Sharon Grigsby

Sharon Grigsby divides her time between writing editorials and directing the department's "Bridging Dallas' North-South Gap" project. The "Gap" project, begun in 2007, advocates on behalf of the southern half of the city and seeks to narrow the opportunity gaps between it and the north. A selection of work from the project was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.
Sharon's Dallas roots reach back to 1980, when she joined the DMN newsroom after working at newspapers in New York and Detroit. She's had the good fortune to work in most every nook and cranny of the DMN, including national news, politics, features, religion and local news before her current stint on the editorial staff.
She is a happy East Dallas homeowner whom you are most likely to find running the Santa Fe Trail and around White Rock Lake.

Hometown: Waco, Texas. Well, Hewitt, actually, a suburb of Waco. If you can imagine Waco having suburbs.

Education: Graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Baylor University in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in political science and journalism.